


A Little Something More

by ironmessTM



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, But there's fluff too I swear, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Okay thank you please enjoy and let me know what you think :-), The writing gets better after the first part I swear give me a chance, Work In Progress, Yeah okay there's a fair amount of angst involved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-03-26 17:46:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19010746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironmessTM/pseuds/ironmessTM
Summary: What would you do, if you had painstakingly isolated yourself from the world around you, trapping yourself inside with all the demons you can only pray will never escape? Living, alone, in the darkness and desolation?When living just barely on the brink of life, having lost your last infinitesimal speck of hope, what would you do when something good, for the first time in so, so long, finally found you?And how did you get to where you stand, broken and vulnerable, today?There isn't much for me to say about this, but it's been a journey and it is a journey, and I hope it makes you feel something too. Thank you :-)





	1. Sometimes the Ending is better off at the Beginning

***

“I’m…so, sorry, Lance.” Keith says desperately, his heart pounding rapidly as the dark sky around them begins to rain down over their heads. Storm clouds brew above them, covering what few stars were brave enough to shine on this dark, desolate night; a night seemingly destined for heartbreak. “I…I might hurt you, Lance, you can’t trust me. You…you can’t trust what I am. I promise, I’ll always love you, no matter what. Wherever I go, I swear, I’ll always love you, just…just like how you’ve loved me, in spite of…in spite of everything I could do to you.” His voice breaks, catching with emotion and guilt. “I love you, Lance. I’m so…so, sorry that it has to be this way, but there’s no other option.” 

The sound of his name on Keith’s lips digs mercilessly into Lance, his pained heartbeat pounding in time with the anguished tempest being drawn to life in the air around them. “Keith, _please,_ don’t do this.” Lance says, his words pleading as he takes a step closer to the boy he loves, the boy it hurts him so, so much to see in pain. “Keith, you’re not a monster, please, you have to believe me, you’re not a monster.” Angst-ridden tears begin to stream down his face, the wind whipping back and forth between them and whirling the raindrops and thunder in its wake, until they’re almost lost in their own little world; a world where stories have their ends.

“Lance…I _am_ a monster. Don’t you get it?” he forces his tone to go cold, trying to shove away how much it hurts him to do this, how much he’s hurting in all. He closes his eyes, pressing hard until he slowly rips them open, revealing the person Lance had fallen in love with; and what he’s turned into now. His deep, scared irises have gone from nuanced and pained to a hard, all-consuming gold. Fangs sprout from his mouth and peer over his lower lip, his skin rippling as it gives way to waves of short purple fur, and his nails lengthen into claws, every inch of his exterior unmoving and menacing in appearance. Lance’s desperation builds, and now he’s screaming in sorrow, because he feels it deep within him with an aching pang that nothing he can say will make a difference. 

“Keith, you’re like…you’re like _magic!_ Keith, please, you’re like magic, you…you mean so much to me, don’t go, don’t do this, please, I’m begging you. _Keith,_ I’m _begging_ you, don’t do this.”

“This is who I _am,_ Lance.” Keith says, the face he wears imposing and almost entirely emotionless. “I’m not the person you think you fell in love with, I never was. All I am, is hunger, and pain, and you need to stay away.” Keith shudders, letting the fur recede, until he almost looks like the person Lance used to know. 

Almost. 

But Keith isn’t that person anymore. Inside, he’s hollowed out like a cavern, an unrelenting scream of sheer hunger the only thing left that is powerful enough to define him. His head is bowed, but slowly, he tilts it upwards and opens his eyes to meet Lance’s gaze, but…they haven’t changed back. They remain that same solid gold, lost and reeling under the debris of everything he’s going to lose, because of how much closer Keith is getting to losing himself. “This is all I am now.” He takes an unbalanced step back, almost tripping over his feet as he tries to restrain all the savage, predatory urges that plague him so, and the fear that finally, finally; they’re taking over. “Lance,” he says, small and scared, choosing to let the truth through, in hopes that maybe, just maybe, he’ll be able to do what needs to be done. “Lance, you need to _run,_ you need to get _away_ from me. I’m losing. Do you _hear_ me, Lance, I am losing, this fight. And I…I refuse, to let you get caught in the crossfire. You need to run, do you hear me? You need to _run,_ and never look back.” He pauses, his eyes shining sadly at the boy he can no longer allow himself to love. “Lance, you...you need to…you need to let me die.”

Lance moves closer, his hair whipping wildly across his face, fighting the forceful gusts of wind as they try and fail to push their way between him and the rest of his world. “No." he says, shaking his head, trying to ignore his rising fear. "I brought you back, every time, Keith. I promise, I swear, I’ll bring you back again.”

“You don’t under _stand_ , Lance.” his voice is filled with anguish, and desperation, and Keith is almost drowning in everything he’s feeling, sinking under the weight of what he knows he has to do. He doesn’t want to take Lance down with him; he knows he can’t.

That’s why he needs to do this. 

“This time…this time it’s different. I’m too…I’m too far gone.” Keith says bleakly. A single tear rolls down his cheek, encapsulating a world of hurt; a world he’s forcing himself to leave, for the sake of those he’ll be leaving behind. He falls to his knees, feeling so, so cold, as the unabating hunger thundering within him tugs him further and further into the darkness. His eyes are scrunched shut in pain, as he tries with every remaining fiber of his being to keep it all at bay. “Please,” he whispers, with what little strength he’s still able to muster. “Lance. I can’t win.” Lance simply fights his way closer, fighting the storm with a vigor that Keith knows will only bring him closer to his doom. “Please,” Keith gasps. “Lance, I can’t do this. I can’t fight this alone, you need to go, before I hurt you. Please, I can smell your heart beating, see your blood flowing. It’s so…” a storm of shivers race up and down his spine, digging into his skin and making him cry out in pain. “It’s too much, you need to leave.” He takes his shaking hand, focusing painstakingly with all his might as he maneuvers it into his pocket, slowly pulling out a knife. The knife that he knows will end this; because it’s the knife that started all of this. The knife that made him what he is now, a mere echo of the person he once could’ve been. Because…since the day he was forced to kill someone with this knife, he’s never truly been the same.

Since that day…he’s been something else.

There’d been an ambush, of some sort, at the Garrison base. Keith still didn’t know what group was responsible, and he didn’t want to know. He’d hidden in a room with some stray officers’ children, who were only there because it just so happened to have been a bring-your-family-to-work day event. He’d done his best to keep them quiet, but eventually, they were found. He’d been cornered, and a man was pointing a gun at the children, taunting them and laughing sadistically as their cries only rose. They were only children. Keith knew he had to do something, and then he’d felt time slow down, the room fade away, and the knife pulsing, calling out to him from where it was hidden on a shelf within his reach. He knew what he had to do.

And he did it.

It was simple…until…it simply wasn’t.

It’d started slow. Something within him had…awoken, so to speak. At first, it was small things, like occasional moments of sudden, uncontrollable aggression, or somehow being able to hear peoples’ heartbeats, and eventually heightened senses. And then…and then the nightmares started, the awful memories and visions plaguing him relentlessly all through the night, horrors and terrors he should’ve never been able to fathom. He’d find himself being mesmerized by blood as it flowed through the bodies of those he loved and those he didn’t, or experiencing moments of sheer impulse and a sudden, all-consuming want; a want for what, he couldn't say. Turning, and changing in feverish sleep, and then waking up to find sheets ripped up as though they’d been clawed, bitten, to shreds. Blood caught under his fingernails and in his teeth with no explanation of how it got there. A subtle, and then gradually a strong, unabating hunger, exhausting him beyond relief.  
And then…and then he knew he was slipping.

He was loosing time, blacking out and waking up in places he didn’t remembering going to. Things going missing, splatters of red littering his skin. He’d had bloodshot eyes, sharpened nails and teeth. He was always on edge, and soon, always alone. Just him and a menacing voice in the back of his head.  
Just him and the monster he knew he was somehow becoming. 

One day he’d caught himself in the mirror, his body in a state of flux, between himself and…and something else entirely. He’d become paranoid, covering himself as fully as possible, limiting all interaction, sadly and harshly carving himself out of the world around him. He simply…he simply didn’t know what else he could do, except wait for it to end, one way or another, and try to minimize the damage he would do when that happened.

And then…and then he found Lance. Or rather, Lance had found him. He’d caught Keith after classes one day, after having noticed his extremely fatigued movements, lack of appetite, general air of desolation. They hadn’t known each other very well, but Lance had been noticing these behaviors for some time now, and…he’d been concerned. As it turns out, it’d been a particularly awful week, and because of this Keith hadn’t found what little feverish sleep he still had hope of finding in more than days; almost weeks. Lance, someone at all, for the first time in so, so long, had broken through the bubble Keith had painstakingly confined himself to, and asked him what was wrong. By now, Keith had just…he had pushed everyone else in his life away, and was so starved of human contact, that before he’d even realized he was doing it, he was letting everything gush out of him. Every last detail. He kept talking, and talking, and Lance…he’d listened. Keith had expected Lance to run in the other direction, but…he hadn’t. 

He’d...he'd _stayed._

And so, whenever Keith felt himself turning, shifting, contorting, inside and out, whenever he’d wince and break out in a sweat and wish with all his dying heart that the pain could just end, all Lance needed to do was brush his fingers along Keith’s hand, whisper reassuringly into Keith’s ear, just be there, and listen, and Keith…he’d be fine. He’d come back. He’d feel almost alive, again.

And somewhere along the way, Keith…he found himself falling in love. And Lance found himself falling too.

But now, it’s too late.  
What they had wasn’t enough.

For the good of them both…it needs to end.

“Lance, I can’t do this alone, you need to go. Go, please, I’m _begging_ you, I can’t…I can’t let you…” he trails off, clutching his side and wincing as a searing gasp of invisible agony slashes across his body.

“Keith…” Lance murmurs, bending down next to Keith. “who said you had to do this alone?”

“You n-need to _leave_ , Lance, y-you can’t be here when I’m l-like this.” Keith stammers desperately. Lance ignores him, stroking Keith’s chin and gently drawing his fingers over the nape of Keith’s neck. He bends down, leaving delicate kisses, so faint they almost hurt, trailing behind his fingers’ lingering touch. A rippling, calming force, almost blooming with the lulling heartbeat of life, of promises and something more, pulses through Keith. He lets out a heavy, ragged sigh as it goes to work, easing his throbbing, convulsing form and slowly bringing it still, blanketing him in warmth and working to banish the demons that refuse so strongly to let him out of their torturous, unyielding grasp. He feels Lance’s gentle hands pry the knife away, and Keith submits, choosing to simply let himself dissolve. Lance looks on protectively, his eyes rimmed in starlight, as Keith’s shaky breathing begins to steady, and he lets his soothing intent flow into the person he loves; the person who needs it. He whispers a few words to himself, almost as though he’s casting a spell, pressing his eyes shut in a loving intensity.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Keith.” He murmurs, and his hands…

They start to _glow_.

They glow a soft blue, the energy almost dancing across Keith’s delicate form like vines growing in all different directions. Lance, his eyes still closed, scrunches his eyes tighter and bends in closer, concentrating almost instinctively in a ritual he couldn’t have possibly known existed. The wind funnels itself around the two of them almost protectively, the sky thundering in time with the faint, but fighting, beat of Keith’s innocent heart. He continues to murmur with increasing speed, whispering foreign words he could never have learned but simply knew he had to say, and the force pumps itself through Keith, filling him with light. Keith hasn’t felt anything so good, so pure, he thinks, since the day he first felt Lance’s loving touch, found himself enthralled in his affectionate gaze. That day, those moments…he knew there was something special about Lance, for certain. Little did either of them know what it truly was.

All his life, Lance had been…different, in a way. Even as a young boy, he’d have moments of wisdom which were seemingly beyond human capacity. He’d connect more strongly to the things and the people around him, and he always seemed to be overflowing with life; it was almost as though he’d had plenty to spare. He’d never thought himself to be special, but then again, one could suppose that special is subjective. He knew his touch could be comforting, that a calming force of sorts was present in those moments, but either he’d dismiss it as something only he felt, or perhaps simply as something beyond him and more common than he knew. Now, as he worked to bring Keith back, he wasn’t thinking. He was simply doing, being, as instincts buried deep inside him came to life, and told him he needed to.

Keith began to feel it seeping out of him, the hollowing, cavernous, chilling fire of desperation and chaos. He felt something else surging in to replace it, filling him up with more life, more brightness than he thought he’d ever had. The storm around them was beginning to recede, the dark clouds withdrawing to reveal the light of the stars, now shining brightly across the vast, black sky. The night was blanketed by a wave of calm, and their world fell into stride, unquestioningly so. After all, tranquility doesn’t always need an explanation; it’s like love, only far less messy.

Keith feels Lance moving his hands away, and he heaves a shaky sigh of relief. “L-Lance?” Keith asks, slowly moving so that he’s sitting up on the ground, which he finds to somehow be warm despite the now-receding rain. He blinks, his vision hazy for a moment, his irises vivifying back to their normal spectrum of color as the gold seeps out of them for what appears to be the very last time. He’s weakened, and even more so unable to understand what he’s seeing. Lance…his eyes are still closed, but his hands, even really all of him; he’s giving off a glowing, soothing light, faint and tinted blue but strengthening in intensity below his wrists. His brows are still furrowed in concentration, but after a moment his muscles relax and his shoulders slump, his head bowed down as the soft glow slowly disappears. He lifts his head to look at Keith, and his eyes…they’re lit up with a circle of bright, undeniable blue; the vibrant light of magic. Below his eyes, at the top of his cheekbones, lie small markings, almost like boomerangs, Keith thinks, but not quite. They flash that same color, and then fade away as his eyes soften back to their natural, caring brown.

“Lance…” Keith breathes, awestruck. “What…what…just happened?” Lance responds with a slightly confused, slightly tired look.

“I’m not…I’m not entirely sure what you mean.”

“You…you brought me back, y-you were…you were _glowing,_ Lance, and your eyes, a-and these markings, on your face, and…” he stops, as Lance places a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait, Keith, slow down. What…what are you saying?”

“I told you, Lance. From that first day we met. The first…the first time you comforted me, the first time we kissed, every time you were there for me since then. Y-you’re like magic.” He stammers, breathless. “You…you _are,_ magic. Y-you were mumbling something, words I don’t think I’ve ever heard before, and you were churning some sort of force, into me, around us…I’m pretty sure you’re the reason for the storm, and everything. Lance…” he says, taking the stunned hands of the boy he knew was perfect all along. “I told you; you’re the future. You’re…you’re something else, something more.” He whispers into the inky darkness around them, knowing that Lance will always be there to light the way. “You’re something more.” Lance looks down at his hands in awe, unsure of how to possibly process any of this.

“You’re saying…you’re saying…” he pauses, trying in vain to understand. “I don’t understand, how…how is this even possible.”

“Lance…you saved me. I don’t know how you can do what you did, but…you _saved_ me.” He says, looking into Lance’s eyes with a bright sense of hope. “You brought me back, took all the darkness away. It’s like…it’s like I’ve been dead, and now my heart’s beating, again. You’re…you’re special.”

Lance finds himself with the capacity to do little more than stare in wonder at the boy he loves, the boy he just brought back into his arms when all odds were against them.

They sit like this, their hands intertwined and their fond smiles soft, and let the world around them melt away, watching as the universe recedes…until all that’s left is the powerful echoing of their hearts; beating perfectly together, with love, magic, and just a little…something… _more._

***


	2. Bonds Borne of Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm the kind of person who tends to write the ending first, and then figure out how things got there.  
> I guess that's what this is turning into; I'm just going to write things in this series of events, not necessarily in order but if not I'll be clear about it. 
> 
> Hopefully you guys can enjoy, as this albeit scattered journey unfolds. Personally, I'd like to think that because it'll be scattered, it'll mimics how things flow in the real world, in a way. 
> 
> And...thank you for all your support. What I receive from you guys really does mean so, so much to me. People taking the time to read my work and tell me that my creations are _beautiful_...it's an amazing feeling, it really is.  
> Hopefully I can play a small part in helping you all feel that way yourselves.  
> Thank you.
> 
> :-)

Lance had known Keith since they were twelve, in a manner of speaking. He’d known Keith about as well as one gets to know the resident hothead in their class; by reputation, name, and warnings of trouble more than anything else. Lance, who’d always naturally, almost instinctually, done his best to care for everyone around him, more or less stayed out of Keith’s way, somehow knowing within him that giving Keith his space was for the best. Beyond that barely conscious behavior, Lance had never really devoted much thought to him, beyond the occasional pang of placid acknowledgement along with everyone else.

That was, at least, until after the ambush at the Garrison.

Lance was fortunate enough to have remained safe, as he was off-campus at the time. When he’d heard reports of what had happened, that an armed hate group had threatened to shoot up the place and held those they found inside it at gunpoint, he’d raced back as soon as he could, finding that there was little more he could do than aid in the very beginnings of the recovery efforts. The perpetrators were all being sent into the custody of law enforcement, their hands cuffed, and their smiles sinister and satisfied as the details of their fate were broadcasted over the news. The whole ordeal was horrifying.

In the days shortly after, he’d begun to feel a certain…presence, at the Garrison. Nothing truly foreboding or frightening, simply…simply something in need. As days bled into weeks, the feeling that something wasn’t whole grew stronger still, and eventually…it led him to Keith. Keith had become something of a grave hero, spoken of more with heavy eyes and nods of somber gratitude than with smiles and cheers. He had saved a room full of kids by taking matters into his own hands and ending the man who’d held a gun to their heads, giving everyone had reason to think back to him now after having all but forgotten about him for years. He hadn’t received any fanfare, likely at his request, and due to how shaken up the community was, everyone was eager to take this opportunity to move on with themselves and leave it at that. Lance could’ve easily dismissed Keith and continued on alongside his peers, but…he knew something had changed. He had no idea what, only that…only that something _had,_ and that maybe, just maybe, he could help.

He began to notice it written into Keith’s face, practically carved into his limp, wan features; surrounding him in a haze that kept him at best, isolated, and at worst, along the lines of condemned. Something…something was pulling the color, the fire that Keith had always stood out for, out of him.

And somehow, Lance knew it deep within him that he needed to see if there was a way to get it back.

He’d just barely mustered the courage to approach Keith after classes that Friday, knowing that he would exhaustedly retreat to his dorm for the weekend and then only show his face for classes that following Monday; thus making this now or never. Lance’s dorm just so happened to be right down the hall from Keith’s, and so as soon as he was dismissed, he’d sprinted there, and he’d waited – somewhat anxiously – for Keith to turn the corner. Eventually, he did, casting a fleeting, unfocused glance in Lance’s general direction, and then proceeded to return to his own, seemingly heavy, cloud of thoughts and start unlocking his door.

“K-Keith?” Lance had said, feeling a wave of nervousness race through him; it seemed that he was less prepared for this than he’d hoped to be.  
Keith raised his head, not looking at Lance but simply responding as though…as though he was surprised. Slowly he turned to the side, his eyes falling to rest on Lance’s in slight confusion, his irises rimmed with an almost muted, tired chaos. Lance was taken aback by how; even though it seemed as though the life was being leeched out of the rest of him, Keith’s eyes were still brilliantly vibrant, almost devastatingly so.

“Ye-yeah?” he’d said, his voice raspy from a lack of use, alongside far too many nights of choked agony he’d never let anyone else see.

“Are…are you okay?” Lance started, feeling his thoughts begin to ricochet against his will. “I don’t know you that well, or anything, and I swear I’m not a stalker, but I’ve noticed…you’ve…you haven’t been eating, I can tell you haven’t been sleeping, and you’re always alone and it’s like…it’s like the life is being drained out of you, I was just…I’ve been concerned. Is there…is there anything going on?” he finally managed to draw his rambling to a stop, and Keith stared at him blankly, his gaze hinted with an almost indiscernible sense of hope, only to give way to a scarred, vulnerable sort of doubt. Like he wasn’t able to believe in the sincerity of Lance’s words, almost regrettably so. Lance had felt his heart racing anxiously, and stumbled to backtrack. “I mean, I’m a total stranger. You don’t have to tell me anything, it…it was stupid of me to expect you to. It’s…it’s your business, you don’t want my help. I’m sorry, I’ll stop bothering you now…” he trailed off, his cheeks hot, about to turn away and retreat into his own world, leaving the now-abandoned bridge between his and Keith’s to crumble where he’d somehow felt that it was being drawn together; drawn together by hope, albeit not much more. But he stopped, when…when he heard Keith’s soft voice, and felt the tug between them spring back to life and his heart soar momentarily alongside it.

“…wait.” 

Lance quickly spun around, to see Keith looking…starved, almost, his eyes each pale storms of their own. “I…I’m sorry, you’re just…the first person in a long time to have asked me that.” He cleared his throat, silently willing it to work for the first time in weeks. “I…no, I’m not, okay, at least I don’t think.” He winced, cursing himself for his nonsensical phrasing. He was sure he’d blown it, the very first – and likely the very last – sign of hope, a sign of a lifeline he’d found within his grasp beyond the welcoming claws of death. 

To Lance, it looked as though it was paining Keith to make himself so vulnerable, to be so honest, but that the notion of continuing on alone was a far deeper ache in his heart than a blind leap of faith could ever be. It was as though…it was as though this was his very last chance at a way out. “Do you…do you want to come in?” Keith stammered, nervous.

To Lance, this wasn’t just a duty he felt towards Keith. Somehow, in some way…he felt a duty to himself as well. He’d felt something more, calling. He wanted to go down this road, to see where it could lead him. To help someone, someone who truly needed it. He smiled, unknowingly bringing back the first strokes of color into a world which, for Keith, had long since receded into shades of grey. 

“I’d…I’d love to.”

And with those three simple words, their worlds slowly began to come together; almost as though they’d been intended to do so all along. And little did they know, little could they possibly have known, just how true that would turn out to be.

Perhaps sometimes, hope is all you need to make two universes collide, and create the one that was meant to be.


	3. Promises Through the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just continuing on from where the last chapter left off, is all.  
> I don't know how well-edited this is, but hopefully you can enjoy it regardless :-)

***

Keith let Lance in, and then pushed the door closed behind him with a click; his frail-looking fingers against the hard wood taken together with his sharp exhale making him seem almost too delicate for that one, simple action. Lance stood in the center of the bare-walled room, and waited for an indication of where to sit. Keith almost heaved himself across the small space, the bags around his now mostly-closed eyes looking darker, and his dragging steps and the strain in his movements becoming heavier by the second. He dropped down onto his bed in exhaustion, lying back with almost a whimper of relief. After a moment of what had felt like staring a dying death in the face, Lance slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, growing increasingly concerned. Keith drew shallow, shuddering breaths, his eyes squeezed shut as though whatever it was that ailed him hurt, so very much, but also like it was nothing new, like there was nothing special about whatever was happening. Lance simply sat there in silence, as the minutes, excruciatingly slow for the both of them, ticked by, watching as the sun disappeared over the horizon. As the light of the first few stars began to peer across the now inky night sky, Keith stirred, letting out a soft, coughing moan and moving, his arms heavy, to position himself upright against the bedframe.

“Keith…” Lance said softly, more worried than he’d been in a long time. “Keith, what…what was that?”

“I…” Keith started, breaking off in a wracking cough that Lance could see rattle through his thin, bony frame. “I don’t know where to start, or how to explain it. I don’t…it’s…it’s crazy. You won’t believe me.”

“Don’t see any harm in trying. I…I just want to try to help, however I can.”

Keith cast an anxious glance out the window, and then sighed. “I can try, but you can’t stay long. I…I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve…I shouldn’t have let you in, I’m sorry I did.”

“Keith, what do you mean? Why…why would I get hurt?”

“I…it started after that ambush. Remember how I…killed, that man, the one who was going to…to shoot those kids?”

“Yeah…”

“In the moments before, it was like time slowed down, and I felt this…th-this knife, on the wall, pulsing, like it was calling out for me to take it. I…I took it. I killed that man with it. After that…I thought it was all over.” He looked over at his small cabinet wherein the knife currently sat, wrapped up in layers upon layers of cloth because he’s too scared to ever touch it again. He looked down, afraid that if he met Lance’s eyes he wouldn’t be able to keep it together. “But…but it wasn’t.”  
His voice came out small and vulnerable, and Lance was just barely resisting the urge to lace his fingers through Keith’s and comfort him in every way he knew how to. He could feel Keith’s subconscious reaching out to him, the faint echo of the pull on Keith’s heartstrings tugging at Lance’s own as well.

“After…after that day, I don’t really know _what_ started, exactly, but something…I don’t know, something _did._ Whatever it was, it…started slowly, I guess.” He drew a breath, and willed himself to speak more levelly. “At first, it was just…little things, like random moments of this, like, forceful aggression, and my senses were better, and I could hear peoples’ heartbeats, feel the heat of their blood flowing.” He looked away, his hair draping in inky locks over his eyes as his voice caught and let more of his fragile truth come through. “But then the nightmares, started. Horrible, horrible, nightmares, things I could never understand but just…terrifying, things I could never completely remember beyond the feelings they had, and…some other things. Anyway. Then I started…finding myself mesmerized, with bloodflow? A-and I’d wake up every day to torn sheets, and blood would be caught in my teeth and under my nails, with no explanation of how it got there. I felt…impulses, a strong, unabating hunger, they were…it was so _exhausting,_ it, _is,_ so exhausting. Anyway. After a while I started losing time, not knowing how I got places, not knowing what I’d been doing or where time was going. I’d find little spatters of blood on my skin, sometimes, and my eyes were really bloodshot, and…it was like I was always on edge, I guess. I…” he’d taken a ragged breath, slumping back with his eyes pressed shut, shuddering as though the collective memory carried more weight than Lance could imagine. “I knew…I knew I was changing, somehow.” He looked up at Lance, his eyes vulnerable and raw and his vice slowly edging closer and closer to breaking. “I felt something, heard this…this _voice,_ in the back of my head. It was terrible, and…I heard it sound more and more like me every day, and then I…I started…” he stops, drawing a shaky breath and placing his head downwards in his hands. “Oh god, no, it’s too much, I-I don’t know how to explain this, I’m sorry, I just…” Lance, overflowing with comfort and empathy, leaned forward, placing a hand gently on Keith’s shivering shoulder and letting his warmth into him.

“It’s okay.” Lance said softly, looking with fierce caring into Keith’s eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. Take all the time you need.” Keith took a deep breath, feeling a subtle force of reassuring calm sink into his bones.

“I was…I was turning.” He said at last. Lance gave him a slightly confused look, and Keith tried to explain what he meant. “Right. That’s not very clear. Um…there’s no simple, or, rational, way to say this? But, uh…my body, it…it’s, it was like, my exterior was rippling, between, you know, the way you and I look, to…to something else. Something scary, something…something that wasn’t human, somehow? It was…it’s bloodthirsty, a cold, awful, animal, the voice I live with in the back of my head, until night falls, and it takes over.” Keith stopped, looking away and scratching at the back of his head as though he was a child about to get in trouble after having told their parents the truth. “The end.” He said quietly.

“Okay, let me get this straight.” Lance said. “You…stabbed a man with a pulsing, calling knife. Then you started feeling different, having nightmares, hearing heartbeats, you’d wake up to scratched sheets, all kinds of blood-related things, and it all tied itself up in a neat little bow in the form of… _turning?_ Did I get that right?” Keith nodded slowly, biting his lower lip almost in shame. “Okay.” Said Lance, leaning back. Keith looked up, one eyebrow slightly arched in surprise.

“…what do you mean, ‘okay’?” he said cautiously in a skeptical disbelief.

“I mean, okay, I believe you. Sorry if my rundown seemed patronizing, I was just trying to make sure I had all this right. I mean, that was a lot, and clearly that was the more…fluffed-up, version? I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, with all this, I can barely process it, a-and I haven’t even had to live it.”

“You…you _believe_ me?” Keith said the words as though he could barely understand what they meant.

“Yeah, I do. I don’t think you’re lying. I mean sure, it’s crazy and it’s awful, but, just…just look at yourself, Keith. I think…I think in some bizarre sort of way, what you’re saying…it makes sense, kind of. I mean…have you told anyone else about this? Like a doctor, an adult, a friend, somebody? I hate to say it, but, I could be wrong, this could just be some sort of…PTSD, with hallucinations, or whatever. Stuff like that.”

“I…I talked to one doctor. He was doing the final checkup rounds on everyone involved in the ambush, and by that point a couple of weeks had passed, so the nightmares had started. I asked him about them, described the creatures I was seeing, the things I was experiencing. Until then, everything I’d been…going through, it was…normal, I guess, more or less. But the nightmares were a new one, and I didn’t know that it was dangerous yet, so I was open about it with him. He was an…odd guy, but reputable. Reliable. It seemed like he knew what I was talking about, but whatever it was that he recognized in what I was saying, it scared him, and he left in a hurry without telling me anything besides ‘cut yourself off while you still can and pray that it works’. I thought he was just crazy, but when things started escalating…I understood why he said what he did, and…I did that. I shut everybody out, made sure none of them would want anything to do with me again, and tried to just…deal. I did research, all kinds of it, but I couldn’t find anything, anything at all that gave me a single clue about how to fix this, or anything that could tell me what this even was. I figured…I figured that I might as well minimize the casualties, I guess. You’re the first person I’ve talked to in…in weeks, really, let alone…let alone about all _this_.”

“I’m…I’m so sorry, Keith. I wish…I wish I knew something, but I don’t.”

“It’s okay. I actually…haven’t felt this calm in a long time. Thank you, for…for listening. I’m glad I let you in here. Now I think I know why I did it.” He smiled softly, pushing through the air of exhaustion, and Lance smiled back. But after a moment, Keith’s gaze drifted to the clock, and then to the window, and his eyes widened as his smile disappeared. 

“What is it?” Lance asked.

“I…I turn, every night. I get drained, every sunset—that’s what you just saw—and sometime after the first stars come out, I start to change. I think…I think it might have started. At first, my thoughts get muddled, and my movements get sluggish.” He tried snapping his fingers in a quick rhythm, and found himself unable to do it correctly, his fingers moving sloppily and slower than he was intending. “Shoot.” 

“Keith, what happens next?” Lance asked in concern. 

“Then…then the turn starts, the painful stuff.” He muttered a few curses, his eyes glistening with the beginnings of fear as he fumbled for a length of thick, clawed rope stashed beneath his mattress. Keith began to tie it around his hands, when his back suddenly arched inward, his head tilted upwards and his body spasming as though he was having a seizure. His eyes were squeezed shut and he was soundlessly screaming in pain, pain it was clear no words could truthfully encapsulate. 

He cast one last fleeting glance at Lance, his eyes overflowing with sheer burden and his hands hurriedly tying himself down to the bedposts. Ripples of…of something, something strong, and dark, forceful enough for Lance to feel its presence as well, started to bubble to the surface; a force going unseen, for the moment, but certainly not unfelt. “Lance,” Keith said, his voice catching and coming out deep and raspy. “Lance, you need to _go._ ” Lance was still sitting on the bed, and Keith raised his tone, his beaten, fearful eyes slowly being eaten away by an all-consuming gold, looking sorrowful and wild. “Go! _Now!_ ” He called out desperately, his words beginning to distort along with the rest of him. “Run, please, before I’m gone, Lance, you need to _go!_ **GO!** ” Lance stood, and began to run out the door, but it was as though forces unknown had taken hold of his body, because in his mind…he hadn’t moved. He was still in there, mere inches from Keith’s seizing form, unable to do one single thing about it besides watch, and feel the dull, piercing echoes of a dark, pulsating agony. It felt awful, that Keith was alone, and that…and that he was helpless to remedy it. To _do_ something about it.

When he finally stopped running and slowly drifted back into the present, he collapsed to his knees on a mix of soft grass and crumbled rock, panting heavily and catching his breath. He looked around, and realized that he was now in the courtyard. “Oh, Keith…” he murmured, clutching his chest. Lance barely knew him, but somehow, he felt…he felt a strong bond, a _connection,_ between the two of them. Something…something meant to mean something. A whisper in the air between them, the fleeting beginnings of a feeling, an itch in his heart gently tugging him closer.

Something… _more,_ somehow.

He stood up, turning around, and looked back into in the building, to see if he could spot Keith’s window. He knew that Keith hadn’t shuttered it, in his hurry with the rope. He found it, but couldn’t spot any movement. It was too far away.

He inhaled sharply, his gaze drifting down towards the door he’d sprinted out of only moments before, running blindly from demons he couldn’t stop and guilt he knew he couldn’t escape. He walked back inside, his steps slow and his hazy fog of thoughts conflicted, and stopped once he reached the corridor where he and Keith lived. He moved past Keith’s door, not sure what he could do even if he did go inside. Lance, albeit shamefully and guiltily, made up his mind as he felt a wave of nausea roll down his torso.

He couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t go back in there, not tonight. He began to turn his doorknob, and with a heavy heart, he walked inside. Walked away; away from the person who now consumed his thoughts, when less than an hour ago, they hadn’t mattered at all.

A tear trailed down his cheek, and he let his door fell softly shut, leaving the two of them together and alone in equal measure. Because…because he just didn't know what he could do, in this moment. But he vowed, he vowed that he would do his best, in all the moments to come. That he would give everything he could. Because Lance…he didn’t know how he’d live with himself if he looked away from this. He wiped away his tears and stared out at the stars, and he made his promise. He knew what he had to do, and he swore to do it. He promised, he promised that he would do everything he could to save Keith, to help him through this as best as he could.

And somehow, after the blackness had taken Keith that night, he heard Lance’s words too. He woke up, wherever he was, and pried open his eyes; and he saw a single beam of light, faint, but real, shining through the dark.

And the world of pain surrounding him…slowly, bit by bit, began to hurt just a little less.

***


	4. Almost Like The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So...this is the fourth chapter, just picking up where the last one left off, as one does.  
> I tell you, formatting from a phone instead of a desktop, it takes time, to say the least.  
> Not much to say, hopefully you enjoy. I look forward to seeing what you think, any comments I receive really do mean a lot :-)

***

Throughout the night, Lance tossed and turned, trapped and blind inside feverish dreams drenched in darkness. He heard, _felt,_ so strongly and yet so distantly, flashes of something. Of someone. Someone trapped right alongside him, but worlds apart. Someone almost within his reach, if only the mere millimeters of space between their limply outstretched fingertips weren’t actually miles in disguise. Almost within his sights, if he could only open his eyes.

It was infuriating in the most saddening, most exhausting way possible.

After what felt like eons, it was the early morning, and the faintest rays of the rising sun’s light began to trail through his window. He drifted awake with a lurch, his shirt damp with sweat and his heart numbly racing. He felt…distant, drained, somehow. He sat there, holding his knees to his chest dazedly, when it snapped into place all at once with a jolt. 

Keith.

It was Keith, stuck down there with him. Now that Lance had been exposed to…to whatever it was, that was happening to Keith…he was tied to it too. There _was_ some sort of connection; he was right. Lance threw the covers off, his movements lingeringly sluggish but still brisk as he freshened up, changed, and let the door to his room close behind him as he stepped into the hallway. If he was thrown awake like that, he reasoned, then Keith probably had been as well.

He knocked on Keith’s door, softly at first but then a little harder. Lance heard muffled groaning, some slow shuffling, and after a few moments the door quietly swung open to reveal a tired, slouching Keith. “Lance?” he croaked in surprise. He cleared his throat, his sleepy eyes seeming to wake up bit by bit. “What are…what are you…” he trailed off, unsure of what to say.

“Do you…mind if I come in?” Lance said, shifting on his toes. 

“Yeah, sure, of course.” Keith replied quickly, and stepped aside to let Lance in before letting the door fall shut.

“Keith, I…” Lance started, sitting down at the edge of the bed, right where he had sat, catatonic and helpless, only hours before. “Look, first things first…I know you’re the one who asked me to leave, I get it, but I just…I felt so bad, leaving you like that without doing anything. I jus—” Keith cut him off, clearly more fully awake. He spoke with his eyes sharp; his tone bluntly unyielding and firmly matter-of-fact.

“Lance, you _had_ to leave. I’m dangerous when I turn. I could’ve hurt you, or worse, if you’d stuck around. Besides, for all I know, this _thing,_ whatever it is, it could be contagious.”

“…I…think there’s a chance that it might be. Contagious, I mean.” Lance said hesitantly, not wanting to prompt Keith to jump to conclusions.

“You…you _what?_ ” Keith said, caught off guard. “What makes you thin—oh god, I…did I _give_ it to…you?” his voice heightened in pitch and volume, the last word staggering and coming out in a quiet, choked cry as he stared wide-eyed in fear at his trembling hands.

“Keith, take a deep breath. I haven’t turned, or been in pain, or anything. I’m sorry, I should’ve said it differently. Just…calm down. It’s okay, everything’s okay.” Lance gently tugged on Keith’s arm, and Keith sat down next to him. “Just… _breathe._ ” Keith drew a sharp inhale, and let out a shuddering exhale. “Just like that. Everything’s okay, Keith. Say it back, say it to me.”

“Everything’s…everything’s okay.” Keith repeated, his voice shaky but slowly becoming more assured, more grounded. “Everything’s okay.” He breathed out, having said it as though he believed it. He sighs, smiling gratefully ever so slightly. “Thanks, Lance. You’re…you’re pretty good at calming me down, keeping me grounded when I get like that.”

“No problem, Keith; it’s what I’m here for.” Keith noticed, somehow, that…he liked the way Lance said his name, the way he looked at him as he said it. He elected to dismiss it, thinking nothing of it. It was, after all, merely a random thought, right?

“So….why do you think this might be…contagious?”

“Well, last night, I was…trapped, in this, like, world of darkness, and it didn’t hurt so much as it was just…consuming, numbing, draining. And I felt…I felt a presence, someone there, with me. I was blind, I couldn’t open my eyes, but I felt someone, someone trapped in there with me. When I was thrown awake at the crack of dawn, I felt depleted, kind of. Exhausted, but in a more…heavy, way. Then it hit me, that it was _you_ who I felt down there. And I mean, it makes sense; it seems like the turning, and the bad stuff, all if that has the most power after dark, right? So, you know, once the sun starts coming up, it has to retreat, to wherever it came from, I guess, and then it just kind of sits there and waits until the next time the sky gets dark. And there’s the whole energy sapping thing, the thing that happens to you around dusk. Does all that…does all that sound right, to you?”

“…yeah, actually, it does.” Keith said after taking a moment to process everything Lance told him. “I remember feeling someone else too, just barely. When I’m in there, I’m…wrapped, covered, submerged and trapped, I guess. Really, really distant. It built up over time, somehow. Like all that…dark stuff, it sort of…cocooned, around me? But…I remember feeling the constraints loosen up, just the tiniest bit. I wasn’t _completely_ blind, _completely_ cut off, _completely_ hidden away, anymore. I don’t know, I’m not sure how it happened, but I guess it was…you.” He finished, the last word exiting his mouth almost breathlessly.

“Hm…do you think you could show me whatever research you’ve done, clue me in on what you've been able to figure out?”

“I mean…I’ve pretty much told you everything I know, and I haven’t been able to find anything else besides what I’ve gathered from…experience.”

“Okay. Well…do you think you could tell me more about…the turn? I mean, if you want to. No pressure, or anything. I just want to see if getting all the facts together in my head could, I guess, help me help you.”

“Seeing as I’ve more or less gotten you into this mess now…I probably should.” He paused, before continuing after a reassuring look from Lance. “Well, um…what do you want to know?”

“Well…could I barrage you, a little?” Lance asked innocently. At this Keith laughed, a surprisingly soft, somewhat raspy sound.

“Why not.” He said, his eyes brightening as he flashed Lance the ghost of a grin. Lance found himself at a loss for words for a moment, taking in all the little nuances of Keith's expression, but quickly shifted back into his step, doing his best to stay focused on collecting the thoughts Keith needed him to be thinking about.

“Okay, then, you asked for it…what do you turn into? How long has the nightly turning been happening? Can you do it on your own, of your own accord, or does it only happen at night against your will? Are you still yourself, still mentally present, or is it like something else takes over?” he paused, giving Keith a second. “Sorry. It’s just easier for me to verbalize what I’m thinking like that, sometimes, so I don’t lose things I want to say before I can say them. It’s why I talk so fast sometimes.”

“It’s fine. Um…it’s happened every day for a little over two weeks. Before that it hadn’t really…happened, much. I’m not present, when it happens. There’s pain, and the turn starts, and then I get ripped away into the darkness you were in, in your… _our,_ dreams. It’s like I get locked far, far away, almost like a…like a coma, sort of? But in, I guess, a numb, detached, almost drugged down kind of a way, I still feel everything that the…that the monster, feels. Because of that, and the dreams I used to have earlier on, I know that the monster is bloodthirsty, a-and dangerous. I don’t entirely know how it looks, but I know my skin turns purple, and something or the other happens to my eyes, nails and ears. There might be more, I don’t think I’m present for the entirety of the turn. And, can I do it on my own…I don’t know. It never happens willingly, and it hurts a lot, so I don’t know, I never really thought about it. I don’t…I don’t _think_ I can? I don’t really know it’d work, and in any case, I’m not entirely sure I want to try it, either.”

“Fair enough. Have you…have you tried to stay in your own body during the turn?” Lance asked. Keith, in response, simply chose to stare blankly at him. “Shoot, right, of course you have. I’m an idiot. Ugh, sorry, this sort of thing is just…really new, to me…” he trailed off, wincing apologetically.

“Heh. It’s okay. Technically all this is new to me, too. And, I mean, of course I try to stay in my body. I don’t like that place. But, I don’t know, the pain just kind of gets…overloading. I slip away before I even realize I have, and poof, I’m gone. It’s like falling asleep, only more…you know.”

“Hm. Well, you keeping yourself isolated might not be helping. I mean, you said it yourself, when I was in the shadow place with you, it hurt a bit less, the constraints loosened up. Maybe, if someone were _there_ with you, during the turn itself…”

“Lance, I’m telling you, I get that you want to help, but I…” he paused, looking away with his eyes narrowed angrily at the world. “I could never live with myself if I was the reason you got hurt, or worse. If I was the one who hurt you as that _monster,_ hurt _anyone.”_ Lance opened his mouth to say something, but Keith cut him off. “And before you try to say otherwise, Lance, the monster? It _is_ me. I’m still in there, somewhere. I’m still responsible, for whatever happens. So if you’re put in harm’s way, because of this…this _thing,_ that I am, then _yes,_ it is still my fault. Okay?”

“Okay, I…I guess that’s fair enough. How about…how about we make a deal? I mean, you tie yourself down, right, and the ropes are still there in the morning when you wake up?”

“Yeah, the ropes stay intact most of the time, unless they’ve gotten really worn out. I cut new lengths every few days or so; I’m out of my supply, so I need to go get a new bundle later today. Usually I go to that little athletics store, the one two blocks away from the nearest city center? They think I’m some sort of hardcore, anxiety-ridden climber, the way I inquire about rope. It’s kind of funny, in a depressing way.” Lance laughed, and Keith did so softly as well. “Oh, and, for the record, I usually…turn back, before I wake up, too, so in case you were going to ask, I don’t really know how that process works. That was random, but it just occurred to me, so I thought I’d mention it while I remembered.” Lance nodded, and Keith paused, his thin smile fading before he continued somewhat hesitantly. “Anyway, back on topic…what kind, of deal?”

“Well…here’s the plan. Or at least, what I’ve gotten together in the past three minutes. The turn starts, you tie yourself down as per usual. Just like yesterday. Only, this time…I stay in the room.” Keith opened his mouth to object, his eyes revealing a mix of fear and a strong conviction, but Lance continued and Keith decided he might as well hear him out. “But, I won’t get within two arm-lengths of you. I just…talk to you, from over there,” he motioned to the far wall of the small quarters, “try to calm you down, bring you back. Tether you, maybe, if that’s how it works. I mean…it can’t do any harm, can it? I won’t get near you, the ropes will hold, and if I can’t bring you back, I’ll…I’ll leave and come back in the morning.”

“Lance…we don’t know if the ropes will hold. I might…I might struggle more, be more violent if there’s another person in the room riling me up, triggering more adrenaline-high responses. When I’m alone, I’m the only threat to myself, so there’s less of a fight to put up. If I get loose…” he looked away, unwilling to put into words the damage he could inadvertently cause. Secretly, he wished that he even truly knew.

“Maybe…maybe I can find you something stronger than twine rope. In the engineering lab, there’s this carbon fiber stuff someone was telling me about? They just finished versions for use, they’ve been getting tested for months. Its magnetic locks are really something else, I can’t see you escaping from those. They have the tensile strength of a three-inch-wide slab of steel.”

“You…you haven’t seen me, Lance. Even I haven’t seen me, not really.”

“…right. But, Keith…it’s worth a try. I promise, I won’t let anything bad happen to anyone. Worst case scenario, I’ll…I can borrow a tranquilizer dart gun from the security department. One of the interns over there owes me a favor. It’s strong stuff in higher dosages, it’ll put you right out for the night before you can do anything.” Lance looked pleadingly at Keith, silently begging him to just let him help. “Please, Keith, just let me try to help you.”

Keith’s eyes finally drifted upwards to meet Lance’s, and he bit his lip as he looked away and murmured the word. “…okay.”

“Yes!” exclaimed Lance, giving a somewhat exaggerated, mostly genuine fist pump. “You won’t regret this. I promise, I’m going to do everything I can to bring you back.”

“You need to swear, that you’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I don’t hurt anyone.” He said it resolutely, with a hit of sadness trailing behind his words.

“You won’t hurt anyone.” Lance said, trying to be reassuring.

“Lance. Whatever, it takes. Promise me, please.” Keith insisted, his teeth gritted but his expression forlorn. Lance, seeing what Keith was going through, the heavy storm of emotion he must be feeling, sighed and relented.

“…whatever it takes, Keith. I promise. No one gets hurt.” 

But…that includes you, Lance thought to himself discreetly. 

“Okay.” Keith smiled softly, a look that was edged with nervousness but only needed a slight nudge in another direction to be otherwise. “I trust you, Lance. It’s…it’s been a while since I could trust someone.”

“Always, Keith. Always.”

The two of them sat together like that under the light of the morning sun, feeling the weights of their lives being lifted from their shoulders and a little something, perhaps a little something more, being mixed in with the air. To Keith…Lance was almost like the sun, somehow. It was as though he’d found his way into Keith’s life and more than willingly let his light peer through what had once, in a time that was now far, far away, seemed like a never-ending oblivion.

And for the first time in a long time…it seemed to Keith like things might just turn out to be alright after all.

***


	5. Falling With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ackk I've planned out the next few bits and I know where this is going and I can't wait to write those I've had them all planned out and ready to go, so I'm so so sorry if this one turned out lower quality than normal, I haven't edited it as much as I should have; I swear, I'm just impatient, and the next ones should be better. Hopefully you can still enjoy this bit, and hopefully you're willing to stick around for what comes next.
> 
> I've got interesting things in store, and, well, I hope you find them interesting too, I guess :-)

***

Lance had soon set off with his mission of sorts in mind, and by the time the morning ended and bled into mid-afternoon, Lance had gotten his hands on the tranquilizer and rope, and showed them to Keith before stashing them for safekeeping back in his room. They’d worked out more logistics; not many people spent their weekends on-campus, and certainly not the hours after dark, so Keith and Lance would have the day – and more so the night – to themselves, and for their plan. The timing seemed well-fitting. “I’ll be back.” Lance had said breathlessly as he headed out the door. Keith hadn’t thought this to be more than hollow words, but much to Keith’s surprise, Lance actually _had_ come back afterwards, with a smile and a couple of apples in hand. “What, did you think you could get rid of me that easily?” he’d said when an honestly surprised Keith had opened the door for him. Once he’d made sure that Keith had eaten, the two of them sat together on Keith’s bed, spending the remaining few sunlit hours left before dusk talking and decidedly getting to know one another.

“So…” Lance had started, after a fair stretch of silence. The quiet between them hadn’t been awkward; if anything, Lance had found it to be quite enjoyable, for a frame of time spent with no impending purpose. However, he’d wondered if it was only enjoyable on his end, and thusly decided that it couldn’t hurt to try to strike up a conversation. Surely it said something or the other that Keith hadn’t kicked him out yet, right? That he’d looked at least the tiniest bit glad when Lance had shown up at his door again? Little did he know, that Keith was actually rather happy to have another person in the room, another person possibly in his _life._ He couldn’t quite understand why Lance was being so kind to him, and while he questioned Lance’s generosity and considered it at least in part misplaced, he had no interest in outright rejecting it. “If I’m going to be helping you fight to keep your mind present in your body while you go through an agonizing physical transformation after dark…then we may as well get to know each other.” Keith, who had been somewhat lost in thought, looked up in surprise, and after a moment tilted his head back and laughed. It was a soft sound, but Lance found that it was surprisingly lovely nonetheless. Unbeknownst to Keith, it actually made Lance blush, ever so slightly.

“That’s fair.” Keith replied, flashing Lance what seemed to be his signature mix of a smile and a smirk. At first glance, Lance hadn’t quite thought that Keith was capable of exhibiting signs of life like these, let alone the vivid personality he’d begun to uncover; signs of the stoic, stubborn, yet light-hearted and quick-wittedly deadpan person Keith had once been, the person Lance might be able to help bring all the way back. Clearly, Lance had things to learn, to unearth about Keith, and he felt up to the task, as though it was a mystery the two of them could perhaps solve together. “Disclaimer, though? It’s been a while since I’ve had a…what do you call it, a…a normal, conversation? So…bear with me, here; my verbalizing skills are probably pretty rusty.”

“Gotcha. I’ll set the game mode to easy, then.” Lance said, leaning back against the wall behind the bed and grinning a little back. “Honestly speaking, me too, probably. I have two other friends, but they’ve been gone for the past month or so, working on early grad projects. They’re…they’re really going places.” Lance looked away, his eyes slightly clouding. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them, I really am, but…there’s them, and then…there’s me.”

“Well…think about it this way.” Keith said, trying but slightly failing to move past the thought that Lance had, perhaps, subtly referred to him as a friend; he was probably just reading into things, right? “You’ve talked yourself into the ring with more or less a literal demon. I could be wrong, but I don’t think your friends can truthfully say they’ve done that.”

“Keith.” Lance said, meeting Keith’s eyes. “You’re not a demon.”

“I mean…I kind of am. The voice, the bloodthirsty instincts…they’re always back there. I can ignore them, mostly, during the day, but at night…I’m powerless. They’re a part of me, Lance. Sure, the line is a little more distinct now, seeing as at this point I’m more or less at its mercy, but before the actual turning started…” he paused, looking down and swallowing as though he was trying to quell the rise of surfacing memories and not just saliva. “My point is, there isn’t as much of a difference as you might think.”

“Well…I guess I’m going to have to take your word for it, at least for now. Anyway…I don’t think discussing whether or not your friend is a demon really counts as normal conversation.” Keith felt his heart almost skip a beat within his protruding ribs. Friend. There the word was again. Somehow, Lance noticed Keith’s reaction, and reached over to gently smack his shoulder. “Keith, I’m actively trying to remedy what’s essentially your demonic possession, of sorts, and I’m _also_ actively trying to get to know you as a person. Yes, I think we’re friends. Were you expecting a formal invitation, a ‘do you like me, yes or no’ note passed to you during class?” Keith let out a snigger that started small, but quickly descended into raucous peals of laughter, until he fell backwards on the bed and found himself holding his abdomen as though he were in pain. “Keith?” Lance asked, his concern quickly growing. “Keith, are you okay?” Keith finally drew the laughing to a close with one last breathless exhale, and let out a deep sigh, his eyes gazing up at the ceiling, before responding.

“You have no idea how long it’s been since I thought I’d ever hear that word again.” He whispered softly, so quiet Lance felt he could’ve blown the words away by breathing on the air between them. Lance, choosing not to say anything just yet, moved so that he was laying down with his face to ceiling, positioning himself on Keith’s right side with almost identical body language.

“Well…I’m glad you’re hearing it now.” Lance finally said, tilting his head to the side so that he was able to see Keith’s face. Keith was still looking at the ceiling, his eyes full of a time-worn wonder that made it seem as though he were gazing at invisible stars and galaxies etched into the fading paint. Lance found himself tracing the outline of Keith’s face with his eyes, taking in his sharp chin, thin lips, pointed noise and sincere, so very sincere irises as if he was drinking in the moon. Keith, after a few infinitely long moments, turned towards Lance, his eyes brimming with gratitude.

“Thank you, Lance.” he whispered. “For everything.” The two of them continued to fill their eyes with one another, seeing everything and nothing from a place outside time, and then the moment was broken; and rather easily left behind. Keith sat up, stretching out and leaning back against his pillows. “If this was game mode easy, then I can’t imagine what the other game modes must be like.” He said, and Lance shifting so he was sitting up too. “How, did I ever do it…”

“Beats me. How have any of us ever done it?”

“Hm…” Keith trailed off, taking out a tablet from the desk beside his bed and tapping on it for a few seconds. “Sunset is supposed to be around…7:24pm, today.” He put it away, and sank back into the blanket next to Lance. “Normally I check first thing in the morning, anxious and on edge as every minute ticks closer.” He sighed, his face thankful. He looked over at the clock for almost the first time that day – an anomaly, if there ever were any – and his expression hardened ever so slightly. “It’s almost 6:45.” He turned back to Lance, looking into his with more serious intent and the slightest hint of fear. “Lance, you should probably go get the rope, and the tranquilizer.” Lance nodded, and quickly darted out the door, knowing that he didn’t have much time to waste. He gathered what he needed, and hurriedly headed back.

“I’ve got the stuff. Has…has the draining started, yet?”

“No, I don’t think. It should soon, though.”

They sat together in silence, their thoughts racing and their legs twitching increasingly feverishly as the minutes passed. After what seemed like a sliver of an eternity, the clock struck seven pm, and somehow, it seemed that the neither the draining nor the first stages of the turn had started yet. Keith frowned, pulling back his heavy drapes with a finger and peering outside for a moment before letting go and turning back towards Lance, disliking the added uncertainty piled on top of everything else.

“It should’ve started by now. The sun is starting to set. The only thing I can think of that could’ve changed anything is, well…you, I guess. I really don’t know how any of this works, but clearly you…mess with it, at least in part. Somehow.”

“I don’t…I can’t explain any of it either.” Lance said, more or less rendered speechless.

“It’s oka—" Keith started, only to get cut off as he tipped sideways, his now-trembling form hitting the wall and falling next to Lance with his eyes pressed shut. “Ahh…” he whimpered in pain. “Lance…the ropes…” he croaked with what little strength he was able to muster. “Turn…might be…start…ing…” he gasped, before ultimately trailing off, falling flat and seemingly giving in to the exhaustion. Lance unraveled the rope and started tying Keith’s limp arms and legs back to the bedposts and bedframe with hurried, feverish movements. As he clicked the cable locks into place and finally stepped back, he noticed something happening to Keith, something… _changing._ His skin…it was turning purple, almost in a wave that flowed outward from somewhere around his chest. Lance looked on in awe, speechlessly astonished as dappled layers of a short purple fur soon followed. He grabbed the tranquilizer and moved further away, watching intently but keeping his distance nonetheless. Keith’s eyelids and the portions of his face around them were straining under the sheer, unrelenting force with which they were held closed, and his jaw and his hands started to clench and unclench in bursts of a powerful fury; the kind of jarring force that made the amount of painful vigor behind each and every one of his movements excruciatingly obvious. Lance could tell how difficult it was for Keith to suppress his screams, and it took almost everything he had not to tear himself from the wall, to keep himself from running to Keith and holding him close and doing everything he humanly could to make it better. His internal pushes and pulls were quelled soon enough, however, when Lance felt a dark presence, a force, of some sort, ripple and stagger through the room, and found himself instinctively pressing backwards towards the door. He had to bite his lip and look away, trying with all his might to resist the unabating urge to flee. He had to stay and help Keith face this. He _had_ to. Keith _needed_ him; he wasn’t about to just throw that away. Not again.

Never, again.

He forced himself to watch, to keep his eyes trained on Keith’s. Keith was still fighting, still resisting, still… _here_. He was holding out, holding on. Slowly, he began to stop shaking. His body hadn’t changed in size, much, but it was noticeably more…full, and muscled, somehow. The way Keith would normally be, Lance noticed, if he weren’t so malnourished and exhausted all the time. He’d been tied to the bed with his stomach to the ceiling, and was now lying down more evenly as his limbs began to relax. Lance hadn’t realized that he’d been holding his breath, letting out a shaky exhale, feeling distant and unsure of what was next. Keith managed to blink open his eyes, and they met Lance’s. But they were scared.

So, so very scared.

And then his back seized upwards into an arch, and his face was contorted in agony beyond anything Lance could ever comprehend. He was screaming, now, but Lance couldn’t hear it. He was frozen, far, far away, in a place beyond time, only cold and alone. Just him and his helplessness, him and everything he was powerless to make better.  
Him and Keith.   
The darkness, that awful, shadow-drenched wave of force was back, pulsing through the room, and it wasn’t giving Keith up without a fight. And Lance…he could do nothing, nothing except look on with that awful feeling of uselessness, and stand utterly still in desperation. Keith managed to pry his eyes open, for one last second, and Lance watched as his almost painfully beautiful, petrified irises were brutally eaten away by a hard, all-consuming gold. And then…and then Keith was gone. He’d tried his best, but almost inevitably, just the way the delightedly menacing voices in the back of his head had predicted, he’d fallen to the demons lying in wait within him. 

And Lance felt it in his heart as though he’d pushed Keith off the ledge himself.

***


	6. Angels in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeet so this chapter...just picking up where we left off, and whatnot 
> 
> I ended up having to rewrite seven pages/2.5k words of this (so basically the whole thing) because the places I took the scene didn't fit with the overarching plan I have for the plot (and unfortunately it became kind of redundant too). Quite frankly, it didn't go that well, at least at first. That said, I did my best to make it work and make it good, and I think I saved it. I hope you guys can agree.
> 
> I've got plans, guys, a fair amount of stuff's going to be happening with this fic and other writing in general, so idk, there's that, I guess.
> 
> Thank you, I hope you enjoy, and...stay tuned? :-)

***

Lance continued to stand and watch, and eventually, Keith had begun to settle; this time for real, it seemed. The feeling of dread in Lance's stomach began to grow, leaving him more and more unsure of what exactly it was he'd gotten himself - and Keith - into. How was he supposed to fix this? Clearly his presence wasn't enough to make any real difference, and that's what he’d come into this riding on. He should've thought this through more clearly; had backup plans, or even really a legitimately _solid_ plan in the first place before giving Keith what faintest bits of hope he could offer. Before getting Keith to place his trust in him. He looked at the ropes as they constricted and absorbed the forceful pushes set against them, glad that they seemed to be holding up. He reminded himself by tightening his grip on the tranquilizer that everything would turn out fine – even if he did end up failing here. He was jerked out of his thoughts as he felt his muscles tense, and when his eyes met Keith's...

Those weren't Keith's eyes. Not at all.

His pupils, now hard, gold and indiscernible from where the whites of his eyes used to be, were open and awake, and it was more clear than ever before that Keith…he wasn’t lying. It was all the things he was, and still the things that Lance believed he wasn’t. This was someone that Lance found almost unrecognizable, but not entirely so. This was Keith, but this was a version of him who had a thick air of menace, of arrogance, dominance and above all, he held himself in a way that presented danger. He looked down almost lazily at his bonds, and then back at Lance with a smirk. Lance was beyond perplexed, and felt his heartrate elevating from the fear his confusion was stirring up within him.

“K-keith?” he asked, cringing internally that his voice hadn’t been steady. He drew a deep breath, and tried to calm himself down, to keep himself from showing fear. “Are…are you…in, there?” he continued somewhat hesitantly. This Keith gave him a snide look in response, but didn’t say anything. Lance decided that it was time to be proactive, even if that didn’t often end well for him where unknown variables were concerned. Whatever the result, he knew he owed it to the Keith he knew to at the very least try. He steeled his expression and when he felt like he just might be cold enough to make the asinine strategy coming together in his head work, he held up his tranquilizer gun and pointed it right at the beast’s head. “Let’s try this again.” He said, his tone unflinching. This Keith looked at it with what seemed to be the most infinitesimal prick of fear, a flicker of a feeling gone before Lance could even be sure that he’d seen it. “Keith. In there?” This Keith didn’t respond, merely staring him down, almost in some sort of smug, begrudging respect. He gave a silent snarl, letting his fangs curl menacingly over his lower lip.

“Fine. Don’t talk. I’ll just send you straight back to whatever hell you just got yourself out from.” Lance hadn’t been sure if this…thing, whatever it was that when added to the mix changed Keith like this, had even been able to register what he was saying. However, in the look he got, not one of a knowing superior but one closer to that of an equal, Lance saw that it could. “Come on. You’ve got to give me something.” He took a step closer, and noticed this Keith shift millimeters away. Lance felt bad about this; but he reminded himself that this wasn’t actually Keith. This was like…an altered version. It was based on him, drawing on him, but it was still something different. It was still made from something else.

“Come on, _say something._ ” Lance felt his irritation beginning to build, and after a few more fruitless moments, he threw up his hands in exasperation and turned around. “Useless.” He muttered, dropping down into one of Keith’s chairs and resting his forehead against his knuckles. “All this, and for what, for a creature that can’t even talk.” This Keith growled, and Lance looked up, laughing ruefully. “Oh, what, you got somethin’ to say? Spit it out, then, I’d love to hear it.” he snapped. This Keith stayed silent, simply glaring at him as though he wished looks could kill. Luckily for Lance, they couldn’t. They sat, silence stretching between the two of them, and Lance felt his annoyance begin to fade.

“Really though…” Lance found himself murmuring eventually. The creature’s ears pricked slightly, and Lance continued. “Is Keith in there?” he asked, his voice soft and gaze genuinely imploring as Lance met his gaze. It appeared as though…as though this Keith just didn’t know. And didn’t quite know how to care, either. Lance sighed, the realization setting in that this whole thing had been a waste. “It’s not your fault, I guess. I get the feeling that you don’t really know any more than I do.” Now, Lance needed to figure out what to do from here. If there was anything else he could try, or if this was the end of the road for his plan – if you could even call it one, he thought with a pang of frustration. Then, just when he needed it, the wisp of an idea flickered in his mind, quickly taking root. It was a long shot, a total long shot, but if there was a way it could go horribly wrong, Lance couldn’t quite see it. He walked over to Keith’s nightstand, careful to stay out of this Keith’s reach, and gently removed the knife from the cloth it was wrapped in. Keith had shown it to him when he asked earlier in the morning, but put it away quickly; clearly – and understandably so – preferring it out of sight. Maybe, Lance theorized, it could help him get some answers. He knelt down by his chair, and held it up for this Keith to see. “Help me out here; does this look familiar?” Upon seeing it, he seemed pulled towards it, and craned his neck forward to get a better look. For a moment, Lance thought it might actually be working, that he might actually say something. But of course, often, circumstance seemingly prefers to work in mildly infuriating ways. 

Some times being far more infuriating, and far more costing than others.

Lance saw something changing, shifting inside this Keith’s eyes. And a moment later, more than a few moments too late, he saw that this had been a mistake, and moved to draw his hand away. He’d gotten too close. When had he moved to the edge of the bed? And when…when had the emblem on the knife’s hilt begun to glow, giving off an unearthly light in its darkest form? Lance might’ve been fast, but if so, he wasn’t fast enough, and in one swiping motion, this Keith’s bound hands shot out at him, his long, sharp claws sinking into and dragging down Lance’s withdrawing forearm on either side in jagged strikes. Lance stumbled backwards, tripping and falling when his feet found no purchase beneath his legs. He looked up in dread to see this Keith pushing and pulling against the ropes with a new, crazed fervor. “No.” he whispered, knowing the word could do nothing. Even with the knife having fallen under the bed, out of sight, its effects had not reduced in the slightest and seemed to have taken root on their own; his expression had gone from snide and generally menacing to one of pure savagery, splintered and twisted with the unmistakable glint of thirst. Lance bit back a whimper of pain as he looked down at his now burning arm, blood pooling out of the long gashes and now beginning to drip onto the floor. He tore off the sleeves from his shirt, and wrapped them as best as he could around the wounds to try to quell the bleeding. The distinct copper tang quickly began to rise and linger in the air around him, and Lance saw him begin to trash and seize harder and harder. He knew that this Keith wanted more, wanted to feel the sweet taste of blood pooling in its mouth and out of his lifeless form.

He realized with a start that he might actually die here.

Lance reached across the floor where the tranquilizer had fallen, and as he levelled it against his knee to fire, he hesitated. He couldn’t just quit now, could he? One last effort. He’d gotten hurt, fine. But he needed to at least make sure that it didn’t have to be for nothing.

He steadied his shaking body enough to let him stand, and cautiously moved so that he was close enough for this Keith to hear him speak. Lance grabbed his jacket from where he’d left it on the chair, shrugging it on as though it could possibly serve to keep him safe. “Keith, please, I…I need you to fight it. I get it, the you I know, you’re somewhere far, far away, and you’re…overwhelmed, by this…thirst. I…I need you to come home, to come back.” He paused, drawing a breath and feeling the air hum between them. So much…chaos, he thought. Why not…why not make it right? “You were right, Keith. This is, somehow, still you. But…” Lance trailed off, exhaling and taking in all the twisted rage ebbing and seizing from the body in front of him. He felt a gentle push, and somehow, he just…knew, in a sense, what he was supposed to do. He didn’t resist – or even really question it, and let instinct guide him as his unharmed hand slowly reached out, brushing the side of Keith’s face and softly stroking the soft purple fur it was covered in almost naturally. He felt a calm, a strong and pleasantly overpowering sort of calm hum softly in the air, and this Keith stopped struggling, choosing to simply let his eyes slide shut. “But this doesn’t have to be.” Lance continued, letting his voice reach down into the darkness. “This doesn’t have to be you. Come home, Keith. You’re…you’re not the only one who needs you to be here.”

\-------

Until now, Keith had been tossing and turning in his prison of shadows; blind and surrounded by the deafening pounding, one he hypothesized might be a heart beating. He didn’t know, he couldn’t quite tell, but whatever it was, it was beyond maddening. He tried to hold out, to hold onto what little room he had managed to defend. He held Lance close, clinging to the thought of him as though he were the gentle promise of a dream in a land of nightmares. He didn’t know what was happening on the outside, but he was afraid, having managed to work up a sweat even here. He found, however, that he wasn’t afraid for himself. More than anything, he was afraid for Lance. That something had gone wrong, that he’d…he’d…

No.

Lance promised that he’d keep himself safe. He had the tranquilizer, Keith insisted, and the ropes would hold…wouldn’t they? He tried to keep himself calm, keep himself awake, keep himself from being pulled away. It took everything he had – and some things he didn’t, but after what felt more exhausting than any period of time ever could’ve been, the relentless pounding – which had been spiking, growing even louder and hurtling through him with every chasmic thud – started to fade. Within moments, it disappeared entirely, and Keith felt the shadows release, just a little bit, and with a gasp it was as though he could breath again. Then, he began to hear the words. It was the first time he’d ever heard anything from here, and it took him a moment for his ears to register the sounds. The voice was distant, but Keith could feel it coming closer, and it was unmistakably Lance. “Come home, Keith.” he said. Keith felt something thrumming through him as he looked up in a grateful bewilderment, and with a start he realized what it was.

It was hope.

“I’m coming, Lance.” Keith murmured, as he pushed against his prison with everything Lance’s voice offered him. Little by little, he – they – began to make a difference. He could feel Lance reaching for him, and he stretched as far as he possibly could to try and reach back.

And finally, Keith’s land of shadows turned into a world of white, before he closed his eyes and bade it goodbye.

\---------

When he opened his eyes again, his vision was hazy and took a moment to adjust. He felt a bit dizzy, like he was coming off of pain medication, and realized that there was a hand on his face, its intention-rich fingers lightly holding his cheek. He reached up to grab it, defensive instincts kicking in – albeit listlessly – and slowly turned his head to the side to see who it was. There he saw Lance, smiling softly and sitting on the edge of the bed next to him. “You made it.” He said, grinning happily.

Keith didn’t respond, barely having heard him in the first place. Instead, Keith took in the planes of his face as if Lance were the first thing he’d ever seen after an eternity of blindness and desolation. Somehow, to Keith, that felt like the truth. Lance, was…he was like an angel, Keith realized, letting out a breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding. Perhaps it was the way the dim lights in the room painted silver in his hair, or cast a dappled glow in intentioned strokes and swathes across his sharp, almost mesmerizing features. And in that moment, all he could wonder was how he had never seen it before.

It was almost as though Lance had been an angel from a dream all along, and Keith had only just woken up enough to see it.

***


	7. No One's Savior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me longer than usual to post (no I am not abandoning the fic I have plaNs)  
> I'm just wicked good at procrastinating everything; this has basically been written out for an entire week, and somehow I've just ignored it. (it's been _planned_ out for far longer but that's beside the point)  
> Yeet  
> So...yeah, not much to say, really. 
> 
> Oh, there is one thing, but it's lowkey rambly and not really Voltron-related so I'm gonna copy paste it from in here to the end notes.
> 
> Now, back to your feature presentation! I hope you enjoy!

***

“Lance.” Keith said breathlessly. He looked out the window, quickly rendered speechless by what he saw. He turned back to the other boy, his face expressing a joyful, almost childlike disbelief. “It’s…it’s not daytime.” He said, stunned in nearly every measure of the word. Lance gently lowered his hand, which Keith realized he was still holding, and Keith grasped Lance’s fingers tighter as though he were making sure all of this was real. Somehow, to him, Lance’s already vivid smile became even brighter.

“Yeah.” He breathed, every beat of his heart seemingly carried higher with the happiness he found in Keith’s elation; that indescribable feeling when a hope comes true, when a dream descends into reality and takes shape before your eyes. “It isn’t.”

“How…how did you do it?”

“I tried to ask him – you – questions, but…I didn’t get any answers, besides menacing, arrogant looks. I swear, Keith, it was so… _weird,_ seeing this. I was expecting a completely different person, but it was still…still _you,_ somehow. Just…different.”

“Wow. But…if you didn’t get any answers…what did you do?” Lance opened his mouth to respond, but then faltered, looking away almost like he regretted remembering. “Lance.” Keith repeated, and Lance only turned further to the side, his shoulders slumping so that he was no longer facing Keith, and his eyes seemed far away. “Lance.” Keith said once more, grabbing Lance’s arms and tugging them towards him. Lance gasped in pain, quickly pulling back his left arm and holding it close. “Lance?” Keith whispered, his voice lightly rasping and suddenly taut with fear. “Did…did I…”

“It’s fine, Keith.” Lance said, trying desperately to keep his tone from quivering, to keep any sign of what happened out of his voice. “It’s just…it’s just a scratch.” Keith looked down at Lance’s arm, and gently pulled it towards him. Lance didn’t resist, and Keith carefully rolled back the sleeve of his jacket – which now had a few faint traces of red steaked along the seams – and something along the lines of a whimper escaped his lips when he saw Lance’s makeshift, blood-soaked bandages. A hand flew to his mouth, and he desperately searched Lance’s face for answers.

“What…what did I…”

“It’s fine, Keith.” Lance repeated more tensely, trying and failing to be reassuring. Keith, however, saw right through his masks and facades, somehow looking deeper within him than Lance realized most people would ever want to look. 

“No, it’s not _fine,_ ” Keith said, his voice rising. “You’re _bleeding._ ”

“I…it looks worse than it is.”

“Show me. Show me _right now._ ” Keith said, his voice going hard and letting Lance know that it wasn’t a request. Slowly, Lance unraveled the makeshift bandages, silently wishing that this shirt hadn’t been the one to go. The sleeves he’d had to sacrifice had gone almost completely from a soft grey to a dark, black-like red, but fortunately, it seemed as though he wasn’t bleeding quite as much anymore. The skin beneath the cloth was tinted pink from the blood-soaked fabric it had been sitting under, but the three gashes, each one extending from just below his wrist down to his elbows, were angry and distinct, and clearly deeper than any normal scratches. Keith stared at the wounds, his hand frozen in the air as though he was going to touch Lance’s arm, but now found that he couldn’t bring himself to come any closer. When he finally looked back at Lance’s face, his eyes were filled with battering waves of emotion and anger. Lance looked to the carpet almost in shame, unable to hold Keith’s gaze and all that it meant as he held back his jacket sleeve with one shaking hand. His eyes were sorrowful, brimming with regret and the apology, that, for nearly the first time in his life, he couldn’t bring himself to give. Because for once, he felt sure that what he’d done was the right thing to do, even if someone else didn’t agree. And he knew in his heart, that, if given the chance, he would do it all over again, without hesitation.

“I was so close, Keith.” Lance whispered, meeting Keith’s almost thunderous eyeline as if he were stepping into a line of fire, the fury behind it making it as close to literal as it could have ever been. “So close. I had to…I couldn’t just give up on you. I had…I had to try.”

“No, you didn’t.” Keith said, his tone cold and harsh, and his throat sounding raw. Lance visibly flinched, feeling the brutal impact of each word. Keith continued regardless. “You didn’t. Yeah, sure I’m fine, now, I’m here, tonight. That’s just _great,_ but…” Keith stood up and turned his back to Lance, rummaging feverishly through his dresser drawers and his voice breaking as though he was on the verge of tears. “Lance, look where it got _you!_ ” he choked out. “Where…where _I,_ got you.” He finished, his quiet resignation almost worse than the fury with which he’d initially reacted.

“Keith, I—” Lance started, only to stop when Keith waved his hand in the air and turned back to face him, a roll of bandages and some anti-bacterials in hand.

“No, Lance.” he said, seeming to have gotten himself together. His words no longer quivered, instead matter-of-factly unyielding in the way he’d always been. He sat back down on the bed, his movements tight and quick as he cleaned and re-wrapped Lance’s wounds. “It wasn’t worth it.” Lance didn’t try to argue, this time. He simply kept still and ignored the stinging of the claw-strikes while Keith made short work of the gauzy cloth, getting lost in hazy, numbing thoughts, none of which were intelligible and none of which seemed to matter. “There.” Keith eventually said, drawing Lance out of his clouded expression with a terse look once he had secured the bandage in place. “Try not to strain the arm, keep weight off of it and the like. I don’t think you’ll need stiches, assuming they’ll still heal normally.” He looked down at his hands before muttering in a saddened, resigned frustration, “we’ve got no clue what those things were even really made of.” Lance opened his mouth to say something – anything – to bring Keith back into the space before him. He could tell from his brief words and lost eyes that Keith had more or less checked out emotionally, so to speak; that as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over. But before a single sound could escape from between his lips, Keith had walked to the door, and stood holding it open. He was looking back at Lance as though he were waiting, and realizing what this meant, Lance felt something cave in the middle of his chest.

“Keith. No. No, I can’t do that.”

“Explain to me,” Keith said, his voice low and clearly irritated. “Why that is.” He moved closer, shutting the door behind him. Lance took a deep breath, knowing that whatever came next, he’d asked for. “Last I checked, I, after transforming into a literal _demon,_ put your _life_ in jeopardy. So _why,_ can’t you _leave,_ and _save_ yourself?”

“It wasn’t like that.” Lance whispered, the words seemingly weightless as they were pulled away from him and reduced to little more than nothing in Keith’s radiating storm of anger. Lance knew he was just angry at himself, upset that he couldn’t be in control. But…all he had to do was reach out, again, right? Push out his calm, like before, and everything would be fine, wouldn’t it? But this time, Lance told the voice in the back of his head no. Keith deserved to let it out, to express himself. He was no threat here, he just…cared. “Keith…I don’t need to save myself from you.”

“Really? Then what _was_ it like?” Keith asked, moving closer, his words distorting around the edges and his eyes flashing a chillingly familiar shade of gold. Lance moved backwards, his eyes filling with fear before he could stop them. Keith didn’t notice, and continued to stalk forward, each step more menacing, more ominous and intimidating than the one before it. Lance tripped on the edge of the bed behind him, falling backwards into a sitting position. A bitter gust of wind whipped through the room – from where it came Lance couldn’t say – and only lent itself to the fearsomeness Keith imposed when he was like this. Lance tried to thrust the calm into the air, to bring Keith back, but it didn’t work; the feverish pushes were too weak, too useless to get farther than an inch away from him before they were dissolved by the rage radiating from the person before him. Keith stopped right in front of Lance, picking him up by the front of his shirt as though he were little more than a rag doll. He stood firm, holding Lance’s trembling form aloft and looking at him with those hard, all but unreadable eyes in a way Lance could only think to describe as debating; the debate in question likely being that to do with him, Lance would’ve wagered. The gold gradually broke, after a few moments, and Keith slowly, soundlessly set him down. “Just go, Lance.” Keith whispered, unstable tremors running almost mercilessly through every syllable of the words. “You’ve…” he started before looking away and stepping back, his eyes brimming with regret. “you’ve done enough.”

Lance wished with all his heart that he could pull Keith close and keep him there, wished that he could make all of this okay and wished that Keith didn’t feel like he had to isolate himself like this. But he knew that right now, Keith needed space. He didn’t know what to do with forgiveness; and it was clear to Lance that he didn’t believe he deserved it. Lance slowly nodded, his expression forlorn and the future suddenly seeming uncertain. He hadn’t realized that it’d ever become anything else to begin with, couldn’t say when that happened. He stepped closer, taking Keith’s hand in his bandaged one and running his lean fingers along Keith’s cheek with the other. Keith closed his eyes, flinching and stiffening before turning his head away. Lance’s hand slowly drifted back down to his side, but not before he gently leaned in, and gave Keith a soft kiss on the cheek; a gesture so faint, so fleeting in every measure of the word, that it pained Keith to realize that he wasn’t even sure it’d been real. With that, Lance’s hands slipped out of Keith’s, and he was gone, the door closed shut behind him as if he’d never been there in the first place. Keith found himself reaching out, found his hands longing for Lance’s to still be with them. It was as though in leaving, he’d taken a piece of Keith with him, one Keith never knew existed until he’d found himself demanding that it run, and never look back. Run. _Leave._ Oh god.

The weight of what he had just done truly hit Keith for the first time, and he sat down on the bed, his head in his hands and his eyes wide, yet unseeing. How…how was Lance gone? It had been a day, only, a day, and yet Keith couldn’t quite imagine returning to a time, to a life, to face a fate worse than death without him. He found the world around him rendered lost and barely audible over the familiar thundering beating that began to fill his ears, and he realized for the first time in days what it truly was. It was his heartbeat. But beyond that…if he listened just carefully enough…it was someone else’s as well.

Lance’s.

They were beating together, in almost perfect synchronicity. How long had he been hearing this, completely unaware? What did this mean?

And would he ever find out, now that he’d done what he just did?

Now, Keith was truly alone. Just as he was a day ago. He’d lived like this for months, and one day, one boy, one heart, had been enough to take everything he thought he knew by storm. Keith had been alone before. But it’d never hurt like this.

Keith’s head hung limp in his lap and stayed that way, until the night gave way to dawn and he noticed the sun’s first rays of light glinting off of something metallic underneath his bed. He reached down before he could think to do anything else, too tired and too drained to think at all, to comprehend the world beyond simplicity. His fingers closed around what he recognized through his blurry haze of half-thoughts as the dagger’s hilt, and a dull tingling ran up his arm and seared through his mind before he could stop it. He froze, his body falling as he was felt himself being plunged inwards into a world of numbing pain, and he was greeted by a realm of shadows unlike anything he’d ever known; a world wherein the darkness was so bright, that somehow it twisted and became anything but.

And that’s where he’d stay; alone and lost to the darkness within him.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so here we go it's ramble time
> 
> The very last episode of iZombie airs today. I would've written something to post today in honor of that, but like the genius I am, I only thought of that last night. I'll see if I can make the race against the clock, but idk, we'll see what happens. Yeet I just wanted to say something about that; I've really come to appreciate the show and I'm sad that it's ending.
> 
> If you're a Voltron fan who has no clue what I'm talking about, iZombie is a show (on the CW and on Netflix); very good, it seems relatively cliche at the beginning, but it's actually very very good at taking cliches and working with them in an original and well done way, so maybe note it down, and perhaps you could do yourself a favor and watch it if you find the time. I wrote a thing about it, too, maybe check that out if you're interested? (even without show context it'd mean a lot if you tried, it's not too difficult to figure out, save one or two terms/references the characters make.)
> 
> Thank you so much, so sorry for the rambling, I just wanted to get that out. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, I guess, of the show(s) and of my writing.


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